


swim until you can't see land

by seaglassblue



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Forced Prostitution, How The Capitol Ate Finnick Odair, M/M, PTSD, Pre-Canon, gratuitous run-on sentences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaglassblue/pseuds/seaglassblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finnick isn't sure what unsettles him more, remembering that he's capable of killing, or knowing that he's capable of killing and that he's on his knees anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes Finnick thinks that people in the Capitol forget just how dangerous they are.

Which is ridiculous, really, there's no excuse for it. The Capitol citizens are the ones who get to watch them kill in beautiful high definition after all, they're the ones who get to see the victors pulled out of the arena streaked with other people's blood on screens fifty feet high in the city center. And yet none of them ever seem at all concerned about paying to be alone in a room with a victor, albeit long after they've had all that unappealing gore washed away.

Then again no victor has ever killed a Capitol citizen, so maybe they aren't the stupid ones.

Still, when the man hits him, for a moment Finnick's reaction isn't shame, or guilt, or tired patient tolerance—it's white-hot anger, the kind that he'd forgotten that he still had in him. Everybody knows it's a bad idea to strike a victor without warning, or maybe it's just the victors themselves that know that, maybe they don't come with those kinds of warning labels. Regardless, suddenly he's remembering that he's taller and stronger than the crimson-haired judge who's bought him for the night—which is probably why he's on his knees—and he's remembering fighting that District Six tribute at the beginning of his games, before he'd gotten his trident, remembering the way he'd grabbed his hair and dragged his head back until he'd heard his neck snap.

He isn't sure what unsettles him more, remembering that he's capable of that, or knowing that he's capable of that and that he's on his knees anyway.

"Everything all right, Finnick?" The man certainly isn't asking because he cares, they hadn't exactly set up safewords or anything—it's more in the way that you would shake an electronic device if it started to skip, impatient for it to work again.

He takes a split second to compose himself, putting on that fuck-me purr that had taken him two years to master. "Mhmm." The nice thing about it being completely artificial is that it's always there when he reaches for it. "Do that again," he says, and then when the man doesn't seem convinced, he says something that no one who could kill eight people with a trident should ever have to say. "Please."

The judge hits him again, just like he asked. There's blood in his mouth, metallic and familiar, and for a moment the whole world takes a sick, sudden tilt. Miraculously he finds some edge to dig into with his fingernails and hang on—it's not a good idea to lose it with a client, he knows that already. His heartbeat has picked up but that doesn't have to be about panic, it can be about sex, the man standing over him doesn't have to know the difference. _Calm down,_ he tells himself. _Calm down. This isn't new._

He looks up to the man and he smiles, blood at the corner of his mouth, and then he says, like some kind of idiot, "That the best you've got?"

 

 

* * *

 

It doesn't matter that it's three in the morning, the gym is still open. It's open twenty-four hours a day, in fact, one of the perks of the Victor's Complex—he supposes they could be called perks, even though they're just about the only group of people anyway who are likely to be up at all hours of the morning feeling the desperate need to run ten miles.

He's been here alone for about an hour, which is good, this is what he needed, though it wouldn't have been unusual to see Gloss or Enobaria here as well. He'd come down here with the intention of wearing himself out, but he has yet to succeed there—he has that odd, wired feeling that he gets every once in awhile after seeing a client, jittery and hyperaware, eyes snapping suspiciously towards every small sound.

Running is good for draining some of that energy, but it's not good in that it doesn't completely engage his mind, only his body, letting his mind wander when he doesn't keep a rein on it. Hands on him—his own hands curling around the shaft of a trident, feeling the cool metal in his hands, heavy rhythmic breathing broken up with moans, heavy wet breathing choked with blood—

He stops running and leans over the machine, which slows and stops obediently in response—head propping on his arm, chest rising and falling. "Pull yourself together, Finnick Odair," he says sternly, to the unmoving track underneath his feet. There's actually a function on the machine that offers artificial motivation, an automated drill sergeant to yell at you and call you dirt, tell you to keep running and criticize your weight, but somehow he doesn't think that's what he needs right now.

It's stupid, really. He's been doing this for how long, and now, _now?_ It seems so arbitrary, and worse, he can't keep it down. These are fine reactions to have, they're normal, as long as they can be tacked and plastered over and covered with a nice smile, but this, this is a problem, the way that it keeps rolling back to the surface with every wave.

He shakes his head and straightens again, like he's on camera. Technically he is, even here, it's just that it isn't likely anyone is going to broadcast this on the morning entertainment news. Ruin the illusion, and all that.

He runs up the six flights of stairs back to his room instead of taking the elevator, a last-ditch effort to exhaust himself before giving up on sleep altogether. It works in one way at least, by the time he gets to his floor he's bent over double catching his breath, sweat dripping. He can hear a door open down the hall, and that brings his head up to look—he isn't sure who would be awake at this hour, but when he spots Haymitch Abernathy it makes sense again. Right. Haymitch never sleeps, does he? That's what the constant deep circles under his eyes seem to indicate anyway, Finnick has always assumed.

Haymitch is regarding him with amusement and mild suspicion, clearly just as surprised as Finnick is to see him, but not too bothered—there's something about running into someone else alone and awake at three in the morning that collapses all pretense, doesn't allow for any superficial scramble for dignity. It's already a lost cause, which is sort of nice in a way.

Except that Haymitch has never seen him like this. No one has, with the possible exception of his client from earlier, who probably hadn't noticed.

"You look a damn mess," Haymitch informs him—so no chance of a repeat on the not noticing, then.

Finnick laughs. "You are probably the only person in Panem who could stumble on me shirtless and glistening with sweat and have _that_ to say about it."

"I'm sure many members of your fan club would die to be where I'm standing," Haymitch deadpans. "Don't you have somewhere to be in the morning, Odair?" he asks, leaning on the frame of his door, arms crossing over his chest.

"Yeah, the—" Doesn't he always? It's probably a good thing he has someone to keep his schedule straight for him, he'd never manage it himself—then again if he were managing it himself he wouldn't be putting these kinds of things on it. "Capitol's Next Top Stylist—thing. I'm a guest judge." He doesn't even know if that's what Haymitch is talking about, or if it's just a general dig at his overexposure—either would be fair game, really.

"Sounds riveting," the man says. "You going to go on Capitol's Next Top Stylist with a black eye and bruises?"

"What? Oh." He'd actually forgotten about that, apparently running had been good for taking his mind off one thing at least. "No. I'm sure my prep team will fix it in the morning." It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened, after all—he'll get sighs and tsks from his team, but they'll fix it or they'll cover it up, they'll get it done. Modern medicine is so good about enabling people to take him apart, there's no real reason for them not to when it's so easy to put him back together.

"They going to fix you falling asleep on set because you were up all night?" Haymitch asks him.

"Well, there are some pretty spectacular pills on the market," Finnick drawls, raising his eyebrows—finally relents at the look Haymitch is giving him. "I can't sleep."

Haymitch doesn't respond immediately, just looks at him for a long moment. That's fine; Finnick is used to people looking. "You want a drink?"

That gets Finnick's attention back, gets him looking straight at the older man with a consideration that he usually doesn't have for that question. The answer is usually no, easily—he'd been told at the age of fifteen that drinking too much was a bad idea for maintaining his physique and he'd been reminded frequently since, a theory that's pretty well born out by Haymitch in front of him. He drinks socially, of course—he goes to a lot of parties, it's basically a requirement—but that's much different from drinking alone in your room. Once again, a theory that Haymitch seems to prove.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I do."

 

 

* * *

 

"Seven?"

"Seven," Finnick confirms, and he laughs in an easy, warm way that has everything to do with the clear liquor sitting on the table between them. Normally it isn't something he'd even bring up, let alone laugh about—but nothing seems off-limits right now, he's sitting slumped on Haymitch's couch with his feet propped on the table, and he's even looking over at Haymitch on the couch beside him while he says it, he can even meet his eyes. Easy.

 _"Seven,"_ Haymitch repeats, and whistles—doesn't laugh, but he's clearly entertained by the whole idea. He's drunk, but he seems _less_ drunk than Finnick even though he's probably had more of the liquor, probably been drinking before he'd invited Finnick in. Then again, Haymitch is generally acknowledged to have the alcohol tolerance of a rock, there's no way he's going to win that contest. "Goddamn. Are people in Four half-rabbit, or what? Did your mother have a litter?"

"Fuck you," he says, but there's no real sharpness to it, it's on the borderline of a laugh as well. "No, she had us all the normal way, I'm pretty sure. One by one."

"Your parents both still alive?" Haymitch barely slurs, it's impressive—the guy could probably walk a straight line and recite the alphabet backwards for a Peacekeeper at this point, and he has at least half a bottle in him.

"Yeah, so—nine." Whereas Finnick on the other hand is having to stop and reorganize his words every few seconds, make sure they're where they're supposed to be, and the words themselves are supplemented by gestures—holding two fingers up here to illustrate. "Two parents, and then seven brothers. Nine total."

"Shit, kid, that's a lot of collateral." Unlike most people he could have said that to, Haymitch gets it immediately.

"Well, it's seven total, now," he amends. "Five brothers still alive, two parents, so—seven." He goes quiet for a moment, knee bouncing against the table—the liquor sloshes against the side of the bottle, prompting Haymitch to reach out for it and rescue it from tipping. "It took me a little while to settle down."

"Ahhh." It's a sound more than a word, but he knows—Finnick can tell that he knows, the alcohol crawling burning through his bloodstream assures him in a feverish sort of way that Haymitch can understand it, he can really _know_ —about President Snow and his stark, cool office, his blank, cool eyes, that voice telling you that your brother had been in a terrible fishing accident, and wasn't it just unfortunate that you hadn't learned to behave yourself yet. Finnick is watching Haymitch's expression raptly for the indication that he knows what that's like and he isn't sure why that feels like a lifeline.

"And then two of my brothers are married, and there's nieces and nephews, and—" he continues finally, like it's the rest of his thought that he'd forgotten before—gestures, hand falling to Haymitch's leg as he focuses back on him again. "You have any family?" he asks, and the silent suffix is _left,_ do you have any family _left_. Haymitch has been at this a lot longer than Finnick, after all, and Snow has a way of knocking people down like bowling pins, the man does not bluff.

"No," Haymitch says, tips the bottle back for another drink before he says anything further. "Not anymore."

Finnick looks over—straight at him, nearly nose to nose, trying to focus, loses what he was going to say and then finds it again, it's like threading a godddamn needle right now. "I'm sorry."

Haymitch says nothing, just looks at him in return, and Finnick feels fine with this, it feels comfortable, everything feels comfortable right now. He's starting to understand why Haymitch drinks so much, it creates a kind of a buffer of mood around you—like no matter what you do, nobody can touch you.

Haymitch leans in and kisses him.

He goes very still, eyes open—and then he inhales sharply, and his hand comes down on Haymitch's shoulder, pushes himself away. It isn't a hard push, not even meant to move Haymitch as much as him, just meant to separate them, that feels necessary, the air in the room has gone thick somehow and difficult to draw in, he's dizzy again—dizzy _again_ , for the second time tonight, this is familiar, the first time it had been someone else's hands on him and— 

"What are you doing?" he asks, low and barely coherent, hand still on his shoulder.

But Haymitch is pulling away himself now, trying to untangle himself completely. "I'm sorry," he says, and it's a completely different kind of apology than Finnick's a moment ago, confused and jumbled like the alcohol had all caught up to him just now, all at once. "Look, I'm sorry, I thought you wanted—"

"You thought I wanted what?" Finnick's voice is sharpening now, as if he can get it sharp enough to cut through the choke that's trying to overtake him, the total freeze.

"I don't know, kid, you were giving me all kinds of—signals." Haymitch's confusion has broken down into frustration, he's the one throwing up his hands now, pulling himself well away.

"Signals?" At the moment he can't consider that, he can't think about whether he can turn it off anymore, whether he had been without even trying. "What, because that's what I do?"

"No, fuck." His hand comes up to run distractedly through his hair, which only serves to make it more of a mess. "No. I'm sorry that I did that, all right? It was a mistake. Never happened, just calm down."

"I have to go." His own voice sounds too loud to him, and his hand isn't steady on the back of the couch as he starts to push himself up—is he shaking, or is that everything else? He sees Haymitch reach to steady him, and he cuts the movement off with a snap. _"Don't_ help me."

And he sees Haymitch's hand pull back again, palm up, surrender and placation. He pushes himself to his feet on his own, which is more difficult than it should be, he isn't sure how much of that is the alcohol. He can't breathe, and that's definitely not the alcohol.

"Thanks for the drink," he says, and finds the door.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't know, Clovia, it's a little ostentatious, don't you think?"

"Finnick Odair calling a design ostentatious? Now there's a warning sign." The two judges sitting on either side of him laugh, and he laughs along with them, head tilting back slightly to show that brilliant white smile. This is his good side, he knows that, that's why they'd put him here—and luckily today, it also lets him cheat away from that black eye, though it doesn't really matter, there's no way the stage lights and television screens are going to get through the carefully-applied layers of makeup.

"All right, all right." He accepts the dig good-naturedly, as if they're very good friends and this is a very old joke between them.

"I mean, this from the man who once wore a suit that included a fireworks display." Tiberius's diamond-sheen hair glitters fiercely in the stage lights as he leans over laughing, puts a hand on Finnick's arm.

"I swear, you wear a suit with a fireworks display  _one_  time and nobody ever lets you forget it," he says, shaking his head in exaggerated mock-annoyance. "But seriously, live birds? Who wants to manage that on a red carpet? Not that it doesn't look great in front of us on this absolutely stunning model." He winks at the dark-haired girl on the the runway and she flushes bright red, which he's pretty sure she isn't supposed to do. He hopes she doesn't get in too much trouble for it, because that wink is definitely going to make the broadcast. "I'm just trying to be practical."

"Oh ho!" Tiberius chortles—loudly, for the cameras. "The new and improved Finnick Odair, he's  _responsible_."

"Take me home to your mother and everything," he agrees blithley, with just enough of a wicked twist at the end to imply that no, you really couldn't.

"Oh, I think most of our viewers would just like to take you  _home_ ," Clovia says, and Finnick's smile freezes for a second.

"All I'm saying is that if my team put something like that on me, I would happily murder every one of them," he responds with a dramatic gesture, directing the conversation elsewhere as deftly as he can manage.

"Uh oh. Backstage, can we make sure we don't have any tridents laying around?" Tiberius jokes.

 _Smile_ , Finnick reminds himself.  _You're only allowed to make jokes about murder if you smile._  He usually doesn't have to think about these things so consciously, it's usually just habit and muscle memory at this point, but he's tired—this is just his best approximation of how he's supposed to be, it's as if he's made a mask of himself and put it on. It isn't the first time that it's felt like that for him, in fact that's the way that he feels more often than not, but no one ever calls him on it. Everyone always believes him.

 

* * *

 

He catches sight of Haymitch down the hall again, but this time the man's back is turned to him—he's walking away, doesn't even see him, but Finnick isn't about to let him go.

"Hey!" He turns away from unlocking his door and calls over to him, but gets no response—Haymitch keeps walking, so he abandons the intention to get inside altogether and follows him. "Haymitch, wait."

He doesn't wait, he keeps walking, but it isn't difficult for Finnick to catch up to him—he doesn't even have to run, long legs eating up the space between them quickly until he's hovering over Haymitch's shoulder.

"Surprised you're not passed out asleep, kid." Haymitch looks over at him, looks him in the eye, which seems like a good sign.

"That is next on the schedule, believe me." He sighs, like it had just been a late night out partying. "Not enough time in the day."

He wants to ask Haymitch to stop walking, to slow down and talk to him, but he isn't sure how to say it. The man seems to pull the thoughts right out of his head, stops abruptly and swings around to look at him—critically, assessing. "They did a pretty good job with your eye."

"You watched it?" he asks, irrationally delighted by that idea despite himself. There's no way for Haymitch to pretend otherwise, the makeup is long gone. "Doesn't really seem like your kind of thing."

"I'll be honest, I was just watching to see you fall flat on your face."

"Never." Finnick's hands go into his pockets, and his smile flashes briefly—not in quite the same way as it had on the set, but he can't really change the way that he smiles, or the way that people react to it, that's something he learned years ago in his first tribute interview, sitting across from Ceasar Flickerman and hearing the crowd roar like a wave crashing white-crested against the beach.

He could almost wish for a crowd now, for the studio audience from this morning to be here to laugh at his jokes at the appropriate times, verify that what he's saying is charming and funny, that he's getting it right.

"Listen, I'm sorry for being such a flake last night," he says, his first foray into the conversation that he actually wants to have, the reason that he stopped him. "I really shouldn't drink." He laughs, in the place of that studio audience, determinedly points out those cues himself.

"You weren't being a flake, you were having a panic attack," Haymitch says, with the tone of a person who knows he isn't going to want to talk about it, and is talking about it anyway.

"I wasn't having a panic attack," Finnick says, and the answer is scornful enough, immediate enough that it's almost convincing, like it's the most ridiculous thing Haymitch could have said.

"Right." Haymitch offers no further argument, he has no real obligation to try to make him believe it. "Well, apology accepted, I guess. Go in peace and sin no more."

"I was wondering if you'd let me make it up to you," Finnick says, and he takes a half-step closer. The changes are very subtle, the drop of his shoulder, the hood of his eyes—his hands are still in his pockets and he isn't touching Haymitch at all, and he's tired, he  _i_ _s_ , but he can do this blind, he can do this blind and deaf and half-dead, he  _has_  done this half-dead before, though in the arena it hadn't been about sex. That had come later.

He needs this to be okay between them. He fucked it up last night and he realizes that, but he can make it okay, he can do that, he can strip away a thread of himself and use it to bind it up. He's been doing that for a long time and one more thread isn't going to matter, the seams are already coming apart anyway. There are so few people in Panem who can understand, if only on a superficial level—he and Haymitch aren't exactly  _close_ , but he's a part of that knit, clinging circle of victors, close like a group of people trying to keep together for warmth and survival instead of any kind of desire. He's one of those people who Finnick can slide a glance to across the room and roll his eyes, who can look at Finnick breathing hard at the top of a staircase and know why he can't sleep. A lot of them have nothing in common at all, a lot of them get on his every nerve and there are probably some who would gladly strangle him given the option—but it's important.

He's going to fix it.

"Whoa ho." Haymitch doesn't take the bait as easily as most people Finnick tries this on, possibly because he's watched him do it to so many people before. He puts his hand on Finnick's shoulder the way that Finnick had done to him the night before, and he holds him where he is. "You don't have to do that, kiddo. We talked about this last night, it just happened. I was drunk too."

"I know I don't have to." The grin is getting sharper, and he's stepping in again—still hasn't touched him, but his head is dropping down low enough that his breath grazes Haymitch's neck. "I could anyway."

He isn't sure how many other victors he's slept with, he doesn't exactly keep notches on his bedpost. Sometimes it's like this, favors for favors—sometimes it's just about being bored, or lonely, or fucked up, it's funny how a bunch of career killers can be just about the safest place that he can find in the Capitol some days. He's fucked other victors because he thought maybe they felt that way too, but it's possible that he might be wrong about that. Maybe it's just him.

"Cut it out," Haymitch grinds out, voice staying low like he doesn't want anyone to come out here and notice Finnick backing him into a wall—like they'd be surprised by that, honestly. The only surprise might be that Haymitch is the one taking a step back—Finnick is taller than him, he's taller than most people, but Haymitch doesn't step back from anyone.

"C'mon," Finnick says, coaxing and implacable—and now his hands are moving finally, settling lightly on Haymitch's hips.

"This how you apologize, Odair?" It isn't a no, there hasn't been a no yet and that's what Finnick is banking on—though then again, he doesn't ever say  _no_  either, does he?

"Yes," he laughs quietly against the man's pulse point, teeth scraping lightly against his neck, "because I'm fuckin' bimbo." Fingers pressing in above someone else's hipbone are cheaper coin than sincerity, and besides, he takes a perverse sort of pleasure in the times he actually chooses it, instead of being wound up by a key on his back and let go. He's giving something away for free; it almost feels like stealing. "Hey, what's the difference between Finnick Odair and the President's mansion?"

He can feel the muscles move in Haymitch's throat, probably trying not to laugh, but one of his hands has come up to curl loosely into Finnick's shirt. "What?"

"Not everyone's been in the President's mansion," Finnick says, and Haymitch gives in, and laughs—pushing him back again at arm's length, but not because he's saying no, Finnick can tell just by the look on his face—he's won, or whatever the equivalent is here.

"All right," Haymitch says, and grabs him by the collar, dragging him toward his room. "Come on, asshole."


	3. Chapter 3

_"I'm sure most people don't want you to talk about it." Her words are long and sibilant, and her eyes are a searing bright blue—probably enhanced, possibly replaced._

_He knows her—she's a client, her name is Mara or Marlena or something of the kind, he can't remember that but he remembers her eyes, and the depthless, light-sucking liner that she paints around them. He hasn't seen her in years, but she's here now, she's crawling across the bed towards him. "But I want to hear. I want you to tell me every—gory—detail."_

_She comes closer, and he hasn't moved—maybe he can't move, maybe he's bound, but he can't feel the ropes. Her body is starting to stretch in the same way as her syllables, her torso is lengthening and so is her neck, stretching into a the flattened wedge of a snake's head, long tongue flicking between her teeth._

_"Tell me how it felt when you killed them." Her jaw begins to unhinge but he can still hear her voice, her mouth is closing around his legs and dragging him in. "Did it feel good?"_

He wakes up because someone is shaking him, someone gets their hands on him in reality before the woman in his dream swallows him whole, and he comes back to consciousness gasping like he's breaking the surface, body surging up like he's not sure he can keep himself there.

His prep team scatters like birds, dramatic collar fins and long fake lashes fluttering as they retreat from the violence of that single movement—it's only these kinds of brief moments that people seem to remember that what he's capable of, but even that deference doesn't last long. They're crowding back around him quickly, his stylist Saffron and of her two assistants pulling at the covers, pulling at him—still aflutter, more worked up than he's seen them in some time. It's confusing, especially when he's only half-awake, shielding himself from them with an arm over his face out of pure reflex, like they might flock and peck his eyes out.  _"What_  the—"

"Finnick, we looked  _everywhere_ —"

"—no idea where you  _were_ , thought you'd gone  _missing_ —"

"Just  _everywhere_ , you didn't  _tell_  us—"

_"What?"_  he repeats with more feeling this time, more awake at this point but no less confused. This isn't his bed, he knows that, these aren't his sheets, but this is hardly the first time he's woken up as a strange bedroom, he just isn't usually woken up like  _this,_  is all. "What time is it?"

"It is  _four in the afternoon."_  Saffron cuts through the buzz and chatter with a scandalized, imperious declaration, hand pressed to her elaborately shaped chest.

Well.

That explains it.

"We had no idea where you  _were,_  Finnick!" she continues, the back of her hand pressing to her forehead now—it's like an ages-old silent movie, but he knows her well enough to read the real distress underneath it. "You've missed two appointments!"

"Shit." Bleary and half-conscious as he still is, he now understands the need for panic. When is the last time he overslept, when is the last time he was  _allowed?_  "Why didn't you just activate my tracker?

"Because then it's a  _security_  issue," Saffron hisses, leaning in. "Do you want the entire Capitol informed that you've gone missing?"

"No. No, of course not," he says muzzily, throwing the covers off and getting out of bed finally, he's got a useless sense of hurry now that is not going to change those missed appointments. There's another pair of shoes by the bed, and a shirt thrown over the chair that isn't his, and that's what jogs his memory finally—he remembers falling into bed with Haymitch, saying something to the man that made him laugh and drag him in-

Right on cue, Haymitch's voice breaks in from the next room. "—well I am  _so sorry_ , please, keep your petticoats on. What are the charges, kidnapping, or shoplifting?"

"Fuck you!" Finnick raises his voice to yell that into the kitchen, but it's perfunctory at best, he's more concerned with locating all of his clothes right now. It's a more difficult task than it should be—he  _really_  needs to remember more about what happened last night—and the assistants scurrying around him trying to do the same are really more hindrance than help, it's a relatively small room and he ends up tripping over skirts and coattails.

Haymitch appears in the doorway but doesn't come in, seeming to sense that the clusterfuck going on in his bedroom is something he  _doesn't_  want to get involved in. "Kid, would you call off your painted parakeet here?" It's clear he's referring to Calliope, the missing third assistant who shows up after another second as well, hovering anxiously over Haymitch's shoulder. "I don't have enough alcohol in my whole goddamn apartment for this shit."

"All right, everybody just—calm down." He's buckling his belt but he's still shirtless—what difference does it make, everyone in this room has already seen him naked. Hell, everyone in the  _Capitol_  has seen him naked, just not all of them at close quarters. "Saffron—guys—can you wait outside? I swear I will be out in five minutes. Ten minutes, tops."

A chorus of complaints spanning two octaves bursts and overflows into the small space, Haymitch looks about ready to put his hands over his ears—but Saffron silences it again with a raise of her hand, pointing her team to the door before she ever says it aloud. "Five minutes, Finnick." She points to him directly, as if pinning that instruction straight to his chest.

They file out again like a technicolor, patterned parade, through the bottleneck that Haymitch has made of the door—he doesn't move, doesn't even angle himself away to let them through, though there's a sarcastic wave at the last moment to the assistant who'd been harassing him.

He turns back, and looks at Finnick. Just looks, and it's familiar, but at the moment he can't place it. Maybe it's something from last night, but for whatever reason those steady gray eyes are raising a prickle on the back of his neck. He pretends to be occupied lacing up his boot—he's only found one so far—but he can't help glancing back. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Oh believe me, kid, I tried," Haymitch says wryly. "I would have had better luck waking the dead." The back of his knuckles rubs against the rough stubble at his jaw. "Besides, you seemed like you needed the sleep."

He doesn't have an answer for that, because it's true, but it also doesn't matter. When has he  _not_  needed the sleep?

He downshifts into something safe, he lets his eyes linger and he smiles. "You have a good time?"

"The fuck do you think?" Haymitch growls, and that makes Finnick grin despite the rush and the stress, makes him remember briefly what it felt like to fish for a compliment before compliments were the only conversation he ever had, before they'd become a way for people to put him in the red and tell him that he owed them.

"I can try to get you your money back if you want," he teases—probably not something he should be joking about, but that's what he does with everything he shouldn't be joking about, it's the best way he's worked out to act like it doesn't affect you at all. "Call up President Snow's office. Hey, throw me my shoe," he says as he spots it over by the door, but that only gets him a skeptical sound in response.

"Get it yourself, lazy bastard," Haymitch tells him, and so he does—walks past his shoe altogether first to kiss Haymitch on the mouth, hard enough that the man has to stand up straight and put both feet solidly on the ground, kisses him like he's trying to steal his breath and stop his heart.

He feels much better today. He feels like himself, and maybe someone should have warned Haymitch about that.

"Well,  _I_  had a good time." Quiet, playful reproach, and he lingers for a moment with a smile chasing around the corner of his mouth—and then he's gone again, pulling back to slide his foot into his left shoe, kicking his heel into it before he moves past Haymitch in the door. "If I die because I missed a couple of appointments— _totally_  worth it." He turns back for a moment to grin at Haymitch but he doesn't stop moving—he's pretty sure his five minutes are long up, and he can't afford to keep people waiting.


	4. Chapter 4

"Ow," he says, but he doesn't even raise his voice—just a sort of a reproachful complaint to Saffron, who is leaned over him in the stylist's chair, intent on somehow beautifying his hand. It's possible that she's doing something about the orange peel underneath his nails, he'd figured she would probably have something to say about that. It's the only thing he's eaten since he woke up, and he was in a rush, but these days he just notices that sort of thing as it happens and then files it away, any slight imperfection that he can inflict on himself does not stay for long. He is not allowed to make himself less than attractive, anything of that nature is quickly buffed out.

There are always the small pains and discomforts of sitting in this chair in front of this vast mirror, there's the waxing and tweezing of offending hair, the chemical whitening, the fad tattoos and straightening and realigning—he can tolerate it, it barely registers. Little complaints like that are usually just meant to be obnoxious, half-hearted attempts to remind the fluttering, implacable assistants that he is in fact an alive, human person sitting in this chair.

_"Ow."_  That's not what's going on now, though. At first it had just been complaint for the sake of complaint, but the second time he says it he means it—whatever Saffron is doing, it  _hurts_ , genuinely hurts a lot worse than the usual inconveniences, it's like getting a white-hot iron pressed against his hand.  _"Hey."_

She doesn't let him jerk his hand away and that's probaly for the best, whatever she's doing will probably be badly screwed up if he pulls away right now. So he does what he always did with pain, he presses his back teeth together and he closes his eyes, tilts his head back slightly—and keeps it in. What else were you supposed to do with pain?

"What in the hell did you just do to me?" he asks when it's manageable again—calm, too calm, exaggerated enough past believability that she'll know exactly what he means by it.

"Look," she says, holding his own hand up to him, clearly proud of what she's just accomplished—which is apparently a set of small, metal patches on the pads of his fingertips, thumb, pointer, and middle finger.

"Yes, I see them," he says, as patiently as he can manage, because it's never the prep team's fault about these kinds of things—or at least, rarely, though he knows they're all still angry at him about this morning. "What the hell are they?"

"Studs," she says briskly, as if that's self-explainatory, but she doesn't leave it there. "They're for sensory enhancement. Don't you watch the trend reports at all? A lot of people are getting them, especially people like you who are—" She teeters on the edge of calling him a whore, but she keeps her balance, doesn't fall over it. "Who have an active nightlife."

The skin is red around the metal studs but not nearly as bad as it could be, it's clearly one of those procedures that the Capitol has down to an art. "Is it permanent?"

Saffron laughs and puts a hand on his shoulder—a few years ago this would have been the point when she said  _dear boy_ , but that had been before his shoulders filled out properly and he put on another two inches. "No, no, of course it isn't." Of course it wasn't, they could probably strip off all his skin and replace it if they wanted to, but it  _feels_  more permanent than most of the things that they did to him, it's not makeup that he can wash away. He isn't even sure how deep they go, what they're attached to, he thought he felt them scraping against bone. "It's very on trend right now, and some of your clients have been asking for it."

"Great," he says, and makes a grandiose wave over the rest of his body. "Carry on. Nobody wants my hair purple, right? Anybody want cat ears? I'm taking requests."

"Don't be a brat," she swats at him, but she's already pulling his hand back towards her, inspecting her work. "After that stunt this morning, you owe them something, don't you think? Other hand please?"

"Other hand?" The moment of reluctance disappears almost immediately, he doesn't fight her on it—holds it out to her when she asks, at least he knows the pain is coming this time.

 

* * *

 

"Now, darling, you really disappointed Pluto and Patroclus this morning, so you're going to work hard to make it up to them." Saffron's lace-gloved hands cup his face for a moment, as if she isn't six inches shorter than him—as if he doesn't know that already. It's been the knot tying in his stomach for the past hour as his team's gotten him all straightened out and presentable again, under and around and pulled tight, over and over again.

They aren't the most pleasant of clients even under the best of circumstances, high-ranking Peacekeeper officials and longtime partners who have a penchant for competition and trying to impress each other. Mostly, though, the nerves are about displeasang anyone at all—the kind of client who has enough money and influence to buy him is the kind who can get a direct line to the President himself if they have a complaint.

He supposes after they pay  _all_  that money, they're more or less justified in being angry if he stands them up.

"I will charm them till they can't see straight," he promises, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. And he will, because he's doing it in self-defense, and that's been the best possible reason to smile since his name was pulled out of a glass globe five years ago.

"And then some," she advises archly, and then she pulls her hands away again, waving him away. "Go, go on. I won't have you late  _again."_

She's right in that he's going to have work hard to make it up, but  _disappointed_  isn't exactly the word for Pluto's mood when he opens the door. He doesn't even let Finnick get in a proper hello, reaches out and grabs him and drags him inside—for a moment, bizarrely, it reminds him of Haymitch yesterday, though this is nothing like his fellow victor at all. Haymitch only pretends to be angry, it's just a default cover over everything and it can't really hurt you, not if you know him and you know what he's doing.

This, on the other hand, nearly pulls him off his feet, sends him stumbling into the bannister of the grand sweeping staircase in their front entrance. He catches himself, and he doesn't let any degree of wariness into his eyes when he looks back up at the man in front of him. He's supposed to take it, he sure as hell earned it today after all, and nobody wants to see him hesitate—that's for scared little victors on their first tour, that's a completely different market.

"I am so sorry," he says instead, and he looks the man in the eye as if he hadn't done of the kind at all. "I'm so sorry. You know I'd never miss an appointment with you—"

"But you  _did_ , didn't you?" It's not exactly like he's backing Finnick into the bannister, because he already doesn't have anywhere to go—he's just closing. Finnick's knuckles are white on the long, thin curve of the wood, but Pluto isn't supposed to notice that. "What happened, did you get a better offer?"

"No. No, no, nothing like that." He steps closer to Pluto, which can't be called the safest decision right now, but it's the one that he needs to make. "Something came up, I couldn't get out of it. I'm sorry."

He slides his hand around the back of Pluto's neck, carefully, not entirely sure he'll be allowed.

_This how you apologize, Odair?_  Haymitch's words echo momentarily at the back of his head, but it wasn't a good time for that—he needs to put that out of his mind, because he can't take his eyes off what's in front of him.

"Oh, you  _couldn't_  get out of it." Pluto's hand closes around his wrist, hard enough that the bones grind together, and Finnick makes a quiet sound in reaction but not protest, he doesn't move.

He knows how to get out of that hold, it would be easy. All he'd have to do would be to twist his hand around inside Pluto's grip and—

"I'm here now," he says, and he doesn't smile, he does not want to give the man in front of him the impression that he thinks this is  _funny_ , but his head tilts back, his neck exposed like he's completely unafraid. "I've got all night." He's not asking the man not to hurt him, he already knows that's going to happen. He's asking him to hurt him, and be satisfied with that.

Pluto calls for his partner upstairs, and some of the tightness in Finnick's chest releases. He's acceptable, the way his head tilted is accepted, and now he can disengage, just a little. He can disappear a little, though it never happens quite fast enough.

 

 

* * *

 

"Oh God, he's done it to you too, hasn't he?" Johanna sounds somewhere between disgusted and completely delighted, with Johanna it's often difficult to tell between extremes.

"Done what to me?" Haymitch demands, suspicious, and pours himself another drink.

"Made you fall in love with him."

Haymitch half-chokes on his drink with laughing. "Oh, come the fuck on," he says, and he tilts the glass back to drain it.

 

* * *

 

"Finnick—" Her words are half a moan, but that's not surprising considering what they're doing. In fact, he's surprised that she can talk at all. "Finnick—I think I love you."

This is the third time that she's seen him, which is about right on schedule. He can still remember being seventeen and pulling back from somebody when they said that to him, startled and confused into asking  _why?_  He doesn't do that anymore, he doesn't miss a beat. "I love you too, baby," he says, and leans in to kiss her on the mouth, so she won't feel cheap.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch would have thought he'd had enough of lost causes by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for anachronistic language and extremely dodgy descriptions of fictional designer drugs and their effects. It's better if we all just pretend all of this makes sense ok right moving along.

"Oh  _my._ " The woman grabs at his hand without permission, but he doesn't resist for a moment, pulls her in closer by that grip instead and laughs, despite the fact that he could swear he's never seen her before in his life. These kinds of parties always have a lot of people putting their hands on him, the ballroom is crowded all the way to the doors—you can't help some contact even if you try, and even if he doesn't know everybody here, they all know him.

The woman who has a hold of his hand now is barely visible behind massive scallops of colored leather, he doesn't  _think_  she's a client but she could be, underneath all that. She seems very interested in the new studs in his hand—he has a feeling that Saffron intentionally played them up, there are silver accents all through his clothes tonight. If that was her intention, it's working, this woman isn't the first person to notice and comment.

"Why, Mr. Odair, are you trying to seduce me?" He thinks to himself blankly,  _no?_ , but he doesn't say it. As if there wasn't a big enough neon arrow over his head reading  _SEX_  already, they seem to have added a few exclamation points.

She hasn't taken her hands off him yet, and so just to be safe he pulls her onto the dance floor.  _"Trying?"_  he smiles. What does she want from him? Probably this. If he's wrong, she'll probably redirect him, she doesn't exactly seem shy. "Believe me, if I'm trying to seduce you, it'll happen."

"Oh, don't make promises you can't keep, Finnick." She giggles like a woman half her age. He's probably made her night—he certainly hopes so, that's what he's here for. Some people who hire him want to keep him to themselves, jealously close doors behind and leave bruises on his skin—some people want to show him off until everyone else in the room is dying to be them.

He moves through the room with an even stroke and he remembers to come up for air, but he comes in contact with so many people that it's impossible to know who it is that drugs his drink.

He doesn't even know what it is, not really. He's tried just about everything that the Capitol has to offer at this point, taken them out of other people's hands, but he's got the blurred, faded impression that this isn't the kind of drug that's supposed to light you up, this is the kind that's supposed to take you  _out_ , and if that's the case it's doing a damn good job. He's nauseous, but he can't even stay on his feet long enough to do anything about that.

He stumbles into some side bedroom and crumples onto the ornate, circular bed at the center of it. There's some kind of vague, unformed intention to sleep it off, even though he can't do that, he's already more than used up his strikes this month. He can't do much of anything else either, though—he puts his head on his arm and he waits. There's a sound of water somewhere, maybe waves—he's not sure if it's real or not, he's not sure whether or not the sound of the door opening and closing behind him is real. But there's a new weight on the bed beside him suddenly, someone reaching for him, a hand sliding up his thigh.

He doesn't so much as say  _no_ , just ducks his head down further and closes his eyes. It reminds him of the woman in his dream who turned into a snake and started to eat him, it's the same kind of pressure and the long nails feel like fangs.

Io finds him there about an hour later—the party must be winding down, either that or she'd noticed that he was nowhere to be found, which meant he was not doing his job. She doesn't seem angry, though, she takes a tone with him like a stylist or a Gamemaker, someone who's found him off his mark. "Oh, sweetheart." Her hand is very cool on his face and very smooth, possibly lacqured with something. He's come down enough at this point to open his eyes and smile at her, though it's not his normal smile, no teeth. "You should know better than to take open drinks from people."

"Mm," he agrees, catching loosely at her wrist, the ideas of what he's supposed to do here are still present, submerged underneath the drugs. "Rookie mistake."

She seems to have realized that he's not going to be much good for what she paid for, but she's still not angry. She's tsking as she pulls at him, helps him sit up, gives him incentive to sit up at all—her nails are short, not like whoever was in here before.

The nice thing about these kinds of drugs is that once he sleeps, he'll forget—whole swaths of his memory will be gone, painted over in long stripes. That's not going to happen just yet, though, she won't let him lie back down. "We'll get you something to make you feel a little better, okay?"

When she comes back, she presses four bright pink pills into his hand—he's not sure what these are either, he's never seen them before. If he were sober he might have questioned that—what they were, the dosage she was giving him—but he's not, and he doesn't.

Whatever they are, they wire him up like downtown after dark, bright neon sensation lacing in through the blackness. They let him be who he has to—maybe even better than usual, he's turned up past a hundred percent, he should learn the  _name_  of those pills. He doesn't think that Io will be complaining about her night—which is good, he doesn't need another disaster on file.

On the way out of her house, a man brushes by him too closely on the stairwell, gets a little too familiar—when Finnick turns to him, he winks, and thanks him for the nice night, and suddenly Finnick wants to tear all of his skin off with his bare hands.

That's the first sign of a reaction, but by the time Finnick makes it back to the Victor's complex he's no longer lucid, he's seeing double of most things and some things that aren't there at all. His heartbeat is moving slowly enough to make him lightheaded, and he makes it up the stairs but not much further. The fact that there's more than one door in the hallway seems to be too much for him, especially with the way they're multiplying and folding together like cards. He takes one hesitant step towards the closest, as if he's not sure it'll be still long enough for him to open it—but he doesn't get any closer regardless, his knees give and he catches himself on the wall—slides down the wall altogether, head going into his arms.

* * *

Haymitch hears the sound of someone hit the wall outside his room, because he's awake. Of course he's awake—the question is whether he's sober enough to do anything about it, and the answer is  _barely_.

He pulls himself from his chair but does not put down the bottle, he's got a suspicion that he might need it—especially when it's this late and he's been drinking, and the paranoid starts to seem more possible, he starts to keep an ear out for jackboots kicking down his door.

That's not what this is. In fact, when he looks out in the hall the first thing that he realizes is that he should have put down the bottle after all, because he's going to need both hands. The second thing he realizes is that it would probably be better if he was sober, because Finnick definitely isn't.

He doesn't look up at when Haymitch opens the door, doesn't move at all, but Haymitch can hear the way that he's breathing and so he puts down the bottle down on a table, dangerously close to the edge but he doesn't notice that now.

"Jesus, kid..." Finnick's head doesn't come up when Haymitch stops in front of him, his eyes don't open. He's clearly wasted, it's not really clear on  _what_  but it also doesn't really matter. "You couldn't make it a hundred feet to your own damn apartment, that's fantastic." It doesn't really matter that Finnick isn't responding, he'd be complaining whether the younger man could hear him or not, though there's a saw-edged tone to the way he's speaking that isn't irritation at all. Finnick's skin is too cold and it's slick and Haymitch can barely feel his pulse when he wraps a hand around his wrist to pull him up, and that's not good, none of this is good.

"Don't know when the fuck I became your fucking—"  _Babysitter_ , would have been the end of that sentence, but it's blocked out by a grunt of effort as he gets Finnick to his feet-Christ, he's tall, and all of that taut muscle becomes something else completely to deal with when it's dead weight instead of warm and arching underneath you.

Anyway there's no point in finishing the sentence, what else is he  _but_  a babysitter, that's practically the job description, isn't it? He could get business cards printed with  _mentor slash babysitter_ , but the difference is that Finnick is not from Twelve. He doesn't have to; there's no gun to his head on this one.

He would have thought he'd had enough of lost causes by now.

He thinks about calling an Avox to help him carry Finnick inside, but he manages it himself eventually, though not without a string of profanity and a few longing glances towards the bottle sitting precariously on the table.

Later. Now, he needs to get Finnick into the bathroom, because he can recognize an overdose when he sees one—or maybe he's mixed something that he shouldn't have, it's impossible to know, but what he does know is that he needs to get it out of him as quickly as possible. He could call for some kind of purgative to make this easier, but he's not sure he could get Finnick to swallow it anyway. It's quicker just to shove two fingers down the young man's throat and make him throw it all up—and that's messy, and unpleasant, but hell, it's not as if he doesn't have practice.

Finally Finnick is conscious again and coughing, and holding himself up on his own with a hand on either side of the sink. He still doesn't look  _good_ —well, he's in as bad of shape as he ever gets, at least, not many people would want to fuck him like this, anyway. It doesn't matter, because they won't have to, he'll get sent to Remake tomorrow morning and he probably won't miss a single appointment, the external is all that matters.

He wonders if Finnick would thank him for saving his life, if that's what this was at all. Idiotically enough, he probably would. That's the problem with victors, they've all got too strong a survival instinct for their own damn good.

But Finnick was in a hallway, not in his own room with an empty bottle of pills, so he'd made an assumption, and he hasn't asked yet whether he was right. He thinks for a moment about how angry Snow would be, to find himself abruptly deprived of his best fundraiser and plaything, but not even that thought gives him much satisfaction.

"What in the blazes did you take, kid?" he demands, once he thinks Finnick might be coherent enough to answer him. He's washing his mouth out, spitting water into the sink and it comes out clear at least, he's not bleeding.

"I don't know," Finnick says, runs one dripping wet hand through his hair just to get it out of his face. "Something pink, I didn't ask."

"Oh, you don't know," Haymitch repeats acidly, not happy at all with that answer. "Well, that makes you an idiot."  _Taking an awful damn high road here for an addict and a drunk, aren't you, Abernathy?_

"I wasn't—somebody put something in my drink," Finnick tells him, stands up straight finally, looks at him. "And then I was really out of it, so my date gave me something else. I'm sure she didn't know."

"You're taking open drinks from people at that kind of party?" It comes out as an accusation, he's not entirely sure he means it that way. He's angry at someone, he's sure of that, but as always it's blunted by alcohol, it corrodes and weakens it down, breaks it up into pieces that are small enough to swallow. "You're taking drugs you don't know the name of from people who don't give a damn about you?"

"I'm sorry for waking you up," Finnick says, and turns away again, splashes water over his face.

Haymitch wants to tell him not to apologize, or maybe he wants to hit him. "Forget it," he says instead. "I wasn't asleep."

He gets Finnick into his bed because he's not sure Finnick can make it into his own, and because he's not entirely sure he should be there without anyone watching him. He doesn't get in bed with him, even though Finnick reaches for him-just reaches without even looking, turns back to look at him when his hand closes over nothing.

Haymitch offers no explanation, sits down in a chair instead by the side of the bed. He doesn't move closer, props his feet on the end of the bed and lets Finnick think about whether it's worth the effort to try to drag him down there. It's not, Haymitch already knows that it won't be, but Finnick is still looking at him like that's what he wants. He doesn't let himself get caught up in that—Finnick is probably still not entirely lucid, and Haymitch is supposed to be the adult in this situation after all.

"Why don't I scare them?" Finnick asks, and fiercely, for a moment his eyes are bright in a liquid, blazing way that's so unlike the staid gemstone quality that they've taken on in his years in the Capitol, they flash they way that they did in his games, when you looked at him and knew he wasn't going to die easy.

Haymitch recognizes it, because he'd hated seeing that look that year, he'd hated Finnick and his conviction and his charm, his hand steady on that ridiculous gold trident. The kids he mentors never really have much of a chance, but he'd been younger then and he'd had more hope for them, and that year he'd looked at Finnick and known what just about everybody in Panem seemed to sense—that no one else had a shot, not even close.

As it turned out, that resentment had been misplaced. Death was a courtesy, he would never have wished this on any of those kids, he wouldn't want to see them crumpled boneless in a hallway struggling to breathe.

He doesn't want to see anyone like that, and he is in the  _wrong_  place for that sort of sentiment, not unless he plans on walking around with his eyes closed.

Fuck, he needs a drink.

"Why," Finnick continues, with more difficulty, some of that fire has banked, "aren't they afraid of me."

"Most of the people in this city haven't ever been scared of anything in their lives," Haymitch tells him, and he's not sure if he means that as reassurance or not. Mostly it's just explanation, there are some things they all need to come to terms with sooner or later—the very few people who weren't born in the Capitol who are allowed to stay here still have to learn the rules.

At first you learn them for survival purposes, but it doesn't stay that way forever, not for everybody. That's the other problem with victors, they took people who outsmarted and outlived twenty-three other people and they tried to keep them down. That's why they do things like  _this_  to them, that's why they keep them tired and poisoned and stretched thin, and it's a good strategy—from a strategic perspective, it has to be done, because they  _are_  dangerous.

In Haymitch's case, it had been forty-seven other people that he'd survived.

"Do you want them to be afraid of you?" he asks.

Finnick doesn't have to think about that answer, he should be trying to rest but he's staring straight ahead like his eyes could melt a hole in the wall—and goddamn, they are green, people in the Capitol have spent endless amounts of money trying to mimic that color and they never have gotten it quite right. "Yes."

Some part of him makes a decision right then.

He can't have this conversation now, of course, not with Finnick half-conscious and him half-drunk, and not in this room that's probably crawling with bugs. It's probably a stupid idea to even think about involving Finnick anyway, Finnick Odair, one of the most highly watched and intensely public figures in the entire city. But Finnick is curled up in his bed broken, he's spent all night getting fileted open and deboned and people have picked their teeth with him—and after all of that, he's still there.

"Get some sleep," he says, and pushes his foot over the edge of the bed for a moment to nudge it into the young man's ribs, as if he can be bullied into it.

"You're going to get me into trouble again." Finnick has ducked his head down, his words are muffled in the blankets around them.

"I'll call your prep team first thing in the morning and tell them where you are," he promises.

Finnick makes an indistinct sound that might be a laugh. "Well, now they know where to look."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch would have thought he'd had enough of lost causes by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, sorry about the massive delay! I got slammed by a bunch of life things all at once, but a lot of that has cleared up now so I'm going to try to get back to regular updates! Thanks for your patience, and thanks to everyone who left comments encouraging me to continue, that helps more than you know!

"I'm starting to think that you're a bad _influence_ , Mr. Abernathy." Saffron's voice is cut glass, and she's fixing him with a look that made her seem like a mother who was about to tell him that Finnick was grounded, and not allowed to go over to his house anymore.

" _I'm_ a bad influence," he repeats with a snort. "Sweetheart, I scraped him off the floor last night after one of his _clients_ gave him something that nearly killed him."

Her lips tighten at those last words, the fan in her hand fluttering slightly--apparently, people in the Capitol were only fine talking about Finnick's death when it was broadcast live, no one had had a chance to place their bets on this.

"Which was what, exactly?" she asks, drawing herself back up into her imperious severity for protection.

"I don't know, and neither does he, so don't bother asking," he said. "He's in a good mood this morning anyway, so just don't--" He waves a hand indiscriminately at the door that Finnick has already left out of minutes ago, shaved and dressed and with a lot more color to his skin than he'd had last night.

"He knows his responsibilities," Saffron says primly, and the implication is clear, _unlike some people_.

She turns to follow Finnick, and Haymitch puts his hand on the door to stop her, blocking her, making sure she's paying _attention_ to him before he says what he wants to say. "Are you going to do something about this?"

The way that her eyes are lined makes them look very, very sharp when she narrows them, like talons. "About _what?_ "

"About _this_." He won't believe that she doesn't understand him, but he clarifies anyway so she won't have at chance to dodge his meaning. "That boy is drowning. Don't tell me that you don't see it."

She doesn't answer him for several long moments, and that's unusual for a Capitolite--they don't usually like the silence. "What is it that you expect me to do?"

For someone who'd spoken so forcefully about it a moment ago, it takes him far too long to answer now, he lets another silence stretch out and she doesn't break this one either. "Talk to someone. Get them to ease up on his schedule a little. I'm pretty sure they don't want him to break down either, very _bad_ for business."

"You've overestimated my influence," Saffron says, and for a suspended, solitary moment it almost sounds like an apology. "And my patience." She reaches out and _removes_  his arm from in front of her in a way that still manages to have nothing to do with force, as if she were merely unlatching a gate. "Good day, Mr. Abernathy."

* * *

 "Are you drunk?"

The look that Haymitch gives Chaff is meant to communicate something along the lines of _really?,_  and he waits for it to sink in, for Chaff to feel stupid for asking. "Haymitch Abernathy, have we met?" he said, and reached across the table as if to try to shake his hand--the one that Chaff is missing, in case his point wasn't already clear.

"Are you _more_ drunk than usual?" Chaff adapts his question, and doesn't miss a beat. "Finnick Odair? You think that's a good idea?"

"Yeah, why not." If there's any part of him that agrees with Chaff that it could be a deeply stupid suggestion, he's not showing it. "I'd say he's got pretty good reason to be angry at the Capitol."

"Finnick? He's a lapdog," Chaff protests, leans back away from Haymitch at the table like he might just need a better look at him, need more _perspective_. "How long do you think he'd last if someone put some pressure on him?"

"Well, he's lasted this long," Haymitch argues steadily, lets no part of his tone or his expression let on that he might have these doubts himself, that he might have other reasons to cloud his judgment. Alcohol winds itself warm and familiar through his veins, and the crowd around them fills in background noise between their words, loses their conversation.

When he invites someone like Chaff out for drinks, there's a fair enough chance that he just wants to /drink, but that's not always the case.

"Did he bat those pretty eyes at you, Abernathy, is that what happened?" Chaff asks, still looking for a _r_ _eal_ reason, looking for the lie. "Heard he's found his way into your bed lately."

"That was one time," Haymitch protests, which is either true or false depending on the criteria, Finnick has been in his bed _last_ night but all he'd done was sleep, and badly. "And if I hadn't started talking to him a little more I wouldn't have any idea that he's looking to make a difference."

"Oh, _talking_ , is that what we're calling it now."

"There's more to him than you think." It's been quite some time since Haymitch has found himself in this kind of position, heard himself saying these kinds of things, but it's familiar anyway, it echoes back memories to him about small, dark-haired District Twelve children and the way that he used to try to sell them to sponsors and trainers. _There's more to them than you think, you'll see, there's something there._

There never was. Those District Twelve tributes never looked like much compared to the tall, golden athletes they sent from the career districts, the solid muscle of Seven's loggers, the lithe fluidity of Four. At some point he'd stopped trying to lie about the tributes that he mentored to try to save their lives, once he'd realized that any amount of help from sponsors wouldn't make up the difference.

Some districts were already dug into a hole they couldn't climb out of. It wasn't fair, but it was reality. You didn't die any faster or slower trying to climb out of it, you just died.

Finnick was different, and goddamn him for it. If you gave him an inch he could win with it, he could pay you right back for what you put into him. Sometimes people forgot, that he hadn't won his Games with charming smiles--he'd taken up that trident and he'd killed every person who had crossed him.

"There would have to be," Chaff says skeptically. "You can't get less than _nothing_."

"I'm not going to endanger anything," Haymitch tells him, keeps laying out the things that he'd already decided, he wasn't going to ask for permission anyway but at least he can pretend like the rest of them have a choice in it. It's a small group, very small, and if it doesn't grow it's not going to accomplish anything, risks regardless. "I'll give him something that he can't hurt us with and see what he does with that, see if ends up whispered around at nice parties."

"You do what you want." Chaff held his hands up--one hand and one stump. "That's all you do anyway. Just don't ask me to take him to bed."

Haymitch made a sound into his glass. "I don't think you could afford him."

* * *

Finnick doesn't come back that night, and he reminds himself that this is a good thing, that this is the reason why you don't feed strays anyway, because they keep coming back thinking you have something to offer them.

He doesn't, not really, nothing but some part of the truth anyway and that is nearly _guaranteed_ to make things worse in the long run. Finnick wants it, though, he's almost sure--he's looking for it, he just doesn't know that yet, and anyway it's not as if Haymitch can do much about the rest of it anyway.

When he doesn't knock that night it lets Haymitch settle into something that he's a lot more comfortable with, it's always just a matter of seeing how fast those bottles get drained. It's easy to lose track of days of the week when he gets into this, and so he's only mostly aware that it's the next day when someone knocks at his door again, aware that it's _day_ only because he can see the light coming in through the blinds.

Finnick is leaning in his doorway like he's got no goddamn idea how he looks like that, all relaxed lean lines and cat-grace. It's spoiled by the deep bruising that Haymitch can see above his collar, telltale signs of a grip around his neck. It mars the whole effect somewhat, but then again some people probably prefer it that way.

"Hi," he says, and smiles, and that smile probably opens just about any door that he wants, doesn't it, that and the fact that he's ignoring how Haymitch smells like stale wine and looks like death warmed over, he's ignoring the way that Haymitch is staring at the bruises. He doesn't even mention it, he's a _pro_.

"Hey, kid," he says, and he doesn't apologize for his appearance, either. He's rarely in very good shape to help at all when people actually need it, but luckily people don't come around _looking_ for it all that often. "What time is it?"

"It's about two," Finnick tells him, and then clarifies when he takes another look at him and realizes that might not be entirely helpful. "In the afternoon."

"What do you want?" He meant to say that a little less gruffly, but it comes out sounding like a grizzly bear that's just rolled out of hibernation anyway. _Fuck it._

It takes a long time before Finnick answers him--a few weeks ago he wouldn't have bet that he could _be_ quiet that long. "You said something about panic attacks the other day," Finnick says finally, and says nothing else. He's seen Finnick strike up conversations with people who must have IQs in the low fifties, the kid could probably have a conversation with a _chair_ but he's silent now, not even meeting his eyes.

It doesn't really matter, it's not hard to fill in the rest of that sentence. The rest of that sentence is _what did you mean by that, tell me what you know about that_ , and even more simplified it might be _help_ , and even knowing Finnick a short time he knows what that costs him. He doesn't want to think about how bad it might be that he's asking, and he doesn't want to think about how it's possible that Finnick doesn't have anyone better to ask. Really, a reasonably attractive lamp is probably a better conversation partner than he is some days, and this is one of those days.

"You better come in," he says anyway, and he leaves the door open for Finnick to follow him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.

_Two hours earlier..._

 

Finnick's smile is automatic when the other man steps into the elevator, it has really nothing to do with who he is or what Finnick feels on seeing him. He doesn't really see him at all, that's just the baseline--everyone gets that from him, no matter who they are or what they've done. In the first few years that he'd lived in the Capitol, he'd had to be told to smile sometimes, had to be reminded by his escort or prompted by people who seemed to take it personally that he  _wasn't._

He doesn't have to be told anymore--that comes like breathing, and if people want _more_ than that then they'll let him know, he expects that too. 

Usually he's paying more attention to that, usually he's watching more carefully trying to catch those cues--but this time, he doesn't notice that the man has gotten so close until he touches him.

It's not the kind of subtle cue that it takes someone like him to pick up, it's not a brush of shoulders or a flirtatious tease of fingers, it's not a lean in close. The man puts his hand on his chest, and pushes him back into the elevator wall.

His smile disappears momentarily, it takes a lot to knock it off his face but surprise and confusion will do that at least for a few seconds. His brow furrows and he looks down at the hand like it might explain itself, like there might have been some kind of mistake.

"Well hello." He still manages to sound no more than politely curious, on the edge of teasing, like they're good friends instead of complete strangers. It isn't that he's not used to people touching him without permission, it's just that there's something strange about this--the man is acting like one of his clients, putting hands on him like he's already bought and paid for, hasn't said a word and already undoing his belt buckle. 

"Whoa, okay--" He catches his wrist, stopping him for the moment if not pushing him away. It feels like one of those nonsensical nightmares he has, just stream-of-consciousness spliced memories of bad things strung together without plot or purpose. This guy doesn't have to have his permission but he has to have  _somebody's,_ that's how it works, and this is nothing like talking Haymitch into bed for fun--this isn't stepping outside of the lines, it's being dragged out of them. "Slow down there, tiger." 

The man reaches out and presses the button that stops the elevator, and for the first time he notices his long, sharp nails.

It comes into focus for him  _fast,_ and all at once, sharpens so quickly that it hurts to try to take hold of it. 

"Hey--"  _Now_ he's pushing him away, he's allowed, this man isn't on his schedule and he doesn't  _have_ to, there's no gun to his head about it. But there's a hand around his throat immediately in reaction, choking,  _slamming_ him back into the elevator wall where he was just pushed before. That could have still been mistaken for playfulness and come-on roughness--this cannot. 

If there are signals that he reads better than any others at this point, it's the ones that tell him when to let it happen. It's not that he _has_ to stop fighting, he never does--he's got two inches on this man and at least thirty pounds of muscle, he doesn't fantasize about better sex, he fantasizes about a trident in his hand.

But his trident is in a glass case in his rooms--close enough to look like it's his, but as locked and secured as if it were in a museum, and it's not here, and he's not going to fight. The man's hand is still closed around his neck because he hasn't broken his goddamn wrist for it, he's  _let_ him to the point where he really does have the upper hand after all because he's gone so hazy from a lack of breath--his vision is bleeding black at the edges, and he wants it to. It's a skip to the end of this--when he woke up, it would be over. 

He's not that lucky. 

He leaves when he's done, that's how it works, starts the elevator again when _he's_ ready and leaves. There's supposed to be some kind of equivalent of that hello smile, it registers to Finnick that he should say or do something, but somehow he can't find it--all those things that are supposed to be second nature aren't there for him when he reaches for them.

He's not _together_ , he doesn't have a handle on this, and that's more terrifying than anything else. When he crumples slowly down the elevator wall his perspective doesn't change with it in the right way, the line of where he's looking tries to  _tilt,_ like the whole world has decided to try to buck him, and it's really all that he can do just to press the emergency button again, lock himself in there for a minute like a tomb.  

He's not  _new_ to this, he's not some innocent--he's not fourteen years old and jumping when someone puts their hand on his shoulder unexpectedly. He doesn't have a  _right_ to act like this is so bad for him, after everything that he's done. But his body's not listening, it's trying to tell him that it wants to die after he already talked himself out of that years ago, after he killed eight kids for the right to it. 

"Okay," he says, to nobody, the way that you say it when the whole house of cards has come down on you, and starting again is more productive than getting upset about it, when you're staring and trying to _make_ yourself pick it back up. "...Okay."

 

* * *

 

From the kitchen, Haymitch can hear Finnick start coughing--not like he's choking or dying, mostly like he's _surprised_ , and that's exactly how it sounds when he speaks up. "Holy shit." His tone is somewhere between amused and impressed, bordering on _horrified_ but not quite there. "What did you put in this?"

"What?" Haymitch doesn't look over when he answers him--studied, mulish refusal to acknowledge that making coffee with half a cup of liquor in it isn't normal. It is for  _some_ people, and it should be on days like this. 

He really isn't the best person to come to about coping mechanisms, and he's _fully_ aware of that--he only knows one strategy and the only way that he's ever employed it is doubling down. If a problem couldn't be solved by alcohol, then you needed more alcohol, that was the only answer you'd ever get from him.

He doesn't  _want_  anyone else following him down into the pit he's dug, he doesn't want to look up and find any of the other victors at eye-level with him, he never talks about it or encourages it, but if he's ever seen anybody that needed a damn _drink_ then that's Finnick right now. It's hard for him to see pain without the immediate impulse to drown it, that's just a knee jerk at this point, as if it pain only has that one weakness, and that's the only way it can be beat.

"Not sure I should drink the rest of this, it might take the enamel right off my teeth," Finnick says--and from where he's standing, Haymitch can see him tip the mug back and drink the rest of it anyway, despite his own warning. 

He leans over the counter to get a better look at Finnick where he's curled up on the couch, long legs pulled in like he's only allowed a certain amount of space. He's breathing fine, he's not shaking--he's smiling like nothing is wrong, and Haymitch is not fooled in the slightest.

He's only gotten the barest details from him so far--he'd asked if it was a client, and Finnick had said no, and in some ways that's all he needs to know about it. That's all he _wants_ to know about it, he's not one of those people who needs to watch Finnick bruise. It makes him  _almost_ wish that he was the type of person to know what to do here, almost wish that he had more comfort to offer--except that he's not that stupid. He learned his lesson about that a hundred times over--whatever you gave to people, it didn't get replaced, it was consumed and it was gone.  

"Are you going to tell someone?" he asks anyway, like he's trying to redirect that, trying to push Finnick onto someone who can do a damn thing about it. 

Finnick gives him a _look_ over the top of the coffee mug, eyebrows raised, as if expecting him to admit that he can't _possibly_ be serious. "Like who, the morning news?"

"Course not." He retreats back into surliness at once, like he's been caught at something. "Your handler. Hell if I know. Tell  _somebody._ "

"I told you," Finnick reminds him, calmly and clearly enough to get him retreating back into the kitchen another step, finding some of what he's just poured for for Finnick. 

"Right, and that's not exactly a sign of good judgment on your part," Haymitch counters. "I just think that you should--" He starts the sentence without having  _any_ idea how to finish it, and that's never a good idea around someone like Finnick, who even talks in his _sleep_ \--he's got firsthand proof of that now, the kind that the gossip magazines would probably die for.  

"Stop," Finnick says, like he can read every single thing running through Haymitch's mind right now and he's dismissing it all--repeating it again when it's clear that he hasn't been successful in doing that, when Haymitch is still looking at him in the same way. " _Stop,_ " he says, draws the word out this time so it's almost playful, like Haymitch meant to  _flirt_ by saying it. "Seriously. It's not a big deal."

"It's _not a big_ \--" Haymitch lights into that automatically, but Finnick cuts him off again, seems to have realized what he's said just as soon as he said it.

"That's not what I meant," he concedes. "I'm not saying it's not a big deal, I'm just saying don't think this is something that happens all the time. It's not," he says, deceptively steadily for someone who'd been leaning in his doorframe a few minutes ago like it was holding him up. "Most people are pretty good about respecting property rights." A flash of a five-hundred-watt smile turns that into a _joke_ before Haymitch can properly classify it as something else--Finnick _shouldn't_ say things like that, but he does. It makes him uncomfortable, and at the same time it invited him not to be, to think of it as normal, and that's the trick, isn't it? 

"I'll bring it up." He caves after another minute of furious glaring from Haymitch, but he doesn't know the kid well enough yet to know when he's telling the truth from when he's lying--didn't know he _ever_ told the truth before a few weeks ago, but apparently it does happen. "It does feel kind of weird--like there's something that someone's not telling me. I'll talk to someone."

For one irrational second Haymitch almost says _talk to me_ , but he doesn't.

It's self-preservation instinct, mostly, warding himself against something even more dangerous than what he's about to say next.

"Can you walk?" he asks, and that's not it, but that's the lead-up, he's testing--coming around the counter finally to approach him like the imaginary force field repelling him has been lifted, or at least retracted a little since they're changing the subject.

"Sure," Finnick answers, promptly enough that he immediately realizes that it would have been better to ask _should you_. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Out," he says cryptically, standing over him with his hands in his pockets.

"Here I've been saying you never take me anywhere," he deadpans, and he reaches a hand up in a silent demand for Haymitch to help him up, just _waits_ with an unassailable smugness until Haymitch does it, though he doesn't miss the slight wince when he does. "Out where?"

"We're going on a walk," Haymitch informs him. "We need to talk about some things."

"What, you want to talk about something that we can't talk about in h--" Haymitch grabs him by the front of his jacket and kisses him, very suddenly and not entirely gracefully, but it accomplishes the purpose--it shuts him up.

And Finnick _gets_ it--he's not stupid, just like he's not always a liar, his opinion has changed of the younger victor only by degrees, but it has changed. "Right," he says, raises his voice very slightly when the kiss breaks again, enunciating well enough that the security taping will pick it up just fine--they all have it, and they all know it, but there are places in the city that don't.

He gets it. "A walk," he says, and the brightness and the blandness are for the cameras, but if there's any way to _really_ cheer him up, it's to imply that there are secrets to be had. "Great. I love walks."


End file.
